


Richie the Ruiner

by RanjantheVictor



Category: IT (2017), IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, Bullying, M/M, More angst, Richie and Eddie-centric, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, Sonia Kaspbrak's A+ Parenting, Then maybe some more angst, Violence, then a happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2020-02-28 16:27:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18760114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RanjantheVictor/pseuds/RanjantheVictor
Summary: It takes Richie Tozier a while to realise, but eventually he does. Richie ruins everything, no matter how much he tries not to.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> I've read several fics like this, but by far my favourite, and the one this work is basically a tribute to, is Richie Tozier is NOT One Up For Change by BCI603 and milevenreddie.
> 
> Go read that.

Richie isn’t sure when he became Richie the Ruiner. Maybe it was a slow run thing. Maybe it always there.

In hindsight he could see that time when he was 7 and had his pops had found him wriggling about on the living room floor while covered in glitter and goldfish crackers that he’d glued to his face ( _I’m a whale at the bottom of the sea you see!_ ) was probably kind of annoying, especially as it took literal years to get all the glitter out of the shag-pile carpet.

He’d realised his mum wanted a girl instead of a messy boy when he was even younger, because she’d, well, said exactly that. Maggie had sat Richie down for a nice tea party, but he’d instead decided the tea had been spiked with rum and he was therefore a pirate and should treat Maggie to a rousing sea shanty ( _Avast ye lubbers! Let’s go hunt for tea-sure!_ ) and Maggie had sighed and asked why she couldn’t have had a nice little girl. At the time Richie had simply asked why girls couldn’t be pirates ( _Because of the cooties? Is that what scurvy is?_ ). 

Maybe the key moment happened when he was 10. He’d told Went about a funny thing Eddie had done at school today (Greta Bowie had spit on Eddie’s shirt, and after a few puffs on his aspirator he’d gone to the vending machine, bought four whole cans of soda and poured them one by one over Greta’s head, squeaking in fury the entire time) and Went had laughed at it. I mean of course he laughed it was funny as fuck and Went liked Eddie (everyone liked Eddie apart from Eddie’s mom which was weird. And he supposed Greta didn’t like Eddie. And Henry didn’t. Actually lots of people really thought he was a loser, but everyone Richie liked liked Eddie which was all that mattered. And of course anyone cool would laugh at a funny story about Eddie because Eddie was cool). 

But that night one of Went’s dentist friends was eating dinner with them for some reason, and his pops had definitely said this friend was cool ( _for a dentist_ , Richie added in his head). Before long their grown-up talk about work and Went’s possible promotion had grown super boring so Richie told the Eddie story expecting chuckles all around. But Went’s not-cool (even by dentist standards) friend hadn’t laughed at all and his pops gave him an angry look. Afterwards he told Richie the story was in-a-propriate, sounding out each bit of the word like it was the worst thing imaginable. At first Richie couldn’t understand why a story that had made someone laugh and be happy earlier in the day would now make them mad.

After a while he thinks maybe the same joke can sometimes be funny and make people happy, and sometimes be in-a-propriate and make people sad or mad. And that’s okay. He just has to learn timing, which is apparently super-important to comedy (Richie always thought being funny was the important thing, but maybe there is more to it). But the thing is, as time goes on, his parents always seem to be sad or mad with him, and at times (a lot of the time) it’s like the avoid him. Sometimes (all the time) it looks they’re trying to ignore him. So how does that work? Is just always annoying? Always in-a-propriate?

The problem gets worse as he gets older, because he keeps having nightmares about the summer when he was 13. Awake-Richie can’t remember anything about that summer at all, other than the fact that a BIG SOMETHING happened, and the BIG SOMETHING was really fucking bad. Asleep-Richie remembers a grinning face and more teeth than you can count. He dreams of grey water, and the colour red and floating. But mostly he has nightmares about fighting with Bill, Eddie’s face scrunched in pain from his broken arm and him shouting at Richie in agony. On the worse nights the dreams just consist of the words _beep-beep Richie_ and a hissing voice in his head saying the other boys knew what he thought about them, and just how much they hated him for it.

The trouble is of course is that Richie does think all that about Eddie. And some other boys and girls as well, but mostly Eddie. Frankly he doesn’t understand how anyone _doesn’t_ think those thoughts about Eddie, because Eddie is cute, and adorable, and beautiful, and smart, and kind, and fiery and funny as fuck. 

When he was younger, he always assumed that he and Eddie would just be together when they grew up. Be together Like That. You know. That Way. Because they were best friends and he liked Eddie a whole lot, and he was sure that Eddie liked him a whole bunch as well.

Eventually though, he realises Eddie doesn’t want to be That Way with him. He doesn’t like it, but he knows it’s true.

Because ever since Gazebogate (Richie’s proud of that name), Eddie has been so much better about stuff that used to send him scuttling for an aspirator. Dirt, grass, even Richie’s wet kisses to his tiny little forehead are all things that Eddie takes, well maybe not in his stride exactly (and not only because his little legs means his stride is like the size of Richie’s handspan). You can still see the old panic in his eyes when he comes across something gross. But then that panic is incinerated by a fire which melts Richie’s heart faster than the ice-cream he once dropped down the back of Ben’s pants, and you can see Eddie’s face turn into a steely mask of resolve and he powers through the grossness like nobody’s business. 

Sometimes he doesn’t even need that, and looks like he forgets that he is even supposed to be grossed out. 

One of the proudest moments of Richie’s life is when they’re in Bill’s basement one Friday night, and Eddie accidentally drinks from Richie’s beer – the bottle which Richie’s sloppy lips were wrapped around not moments earlier – and sips from it happily. When Richie points out that Eddie’s is stealing his beer (super delicately in case Eddie does an Eddie-rage), Eddie simply smirks at Richie, asks “What you going to do about it?” and downs it in one. Of course, this might not have been such a great idea in hindsight as 30 minutes later Eddie is heaving his guts out into the Denbrough’s hydrangeas, but still, it makes Richie’s heart swell with pride.

But, even after all that, Eddie is still completely consistent when it comes to all that gay stuff. It’s not just the fact that he never says anything about how handsome some boys are, and only occasionally says something about a pretty girl on TV or something. But he also has kept chattering about AIDS, and the diseases you can get from _homosexual sexual relations_ (he always says it that way), no different to when he was 5 years old and reciting all the Latin names for germs he knew whenever Richie dragged him to the sandbox during recess. 

So Richie the Receiver has received the message loud and clear. Eddie has gotten over all the other bullshit that Sonia drilled into him when he was younger, so if he still says all that about _homosexual sexual relations_ then Richie knows that must be something he actually feels, and not just some Mrs K. propaganda crap. 

Eddie always does say he doesn’t have anything against gay people, none of the Losers do, and hell, they’ve all been called fags (and dykes in Bev’s case) enough that Richie is pretty sure none of them would ever hate Richie for being queer. But clearly Eddie doesn’t have the same thoughts that Richie does. The same thoughts he has at night or when Eddie bends over, or when Eddie eats a popsicle, or when Eddie wears shorts, or when Eddie does well, anything really. Those same thoughts that the voice Richie remembers from the BIG SOMETHING mocks him for in his dreams.

So Richie’s secret thoughts will become his _super_ secret thoughts, and he and Eddie won’t be like that. They’ll just be best friends.

He’s not exactly overjoyed by this revelation, but he knows it’s something. Some Eddie is better than no Eddie, so if this is what it means to have some Eddie then so be it. 

It’s okay. He supposes.

But then one day, the day of the Incident, it all goes wrong.

It should just be a normal day. Sure, he had the BIG SOMETHING dreams last night, but sadly that’s pretty normal. As is the way that Went reminds him over the breakfast table not to be in-a-propriate today. Somehow though, everything with the Losers just goes a bit wrong.

Bev won’t let him mooch her last cigarette.

Stan looks like he rolls his eyes harder than normal when Richie makes another joke about his dick being cut off.

Bill’s stutter is bad that day and Ben thinks he’s putting on weight again (which is ridiculous, it’s sliding off him faster than the ice cream that Richie once put down the back of his pants). Normally Richie’s gentle ribbing about this cheers them both up (Richie the Ribber, Ribbed for her Pleasure, they shall inscribe on his tombstone) but today it seemed he did it wrong. Richie knew (used to know. Used to believe) that this sort of gentle teasing was actually good. It let them know their stutters and weight aren’t a big deal because Richie teases everyone about everything, and if it lets them be faux-mad at Richie then that’s better than them being actually mad at themselves. But today he was in-a-propriate. Today he was annoying, and it all goes wrong.

He doesn’t even know how he annoys Mike because Mike is so nice, but somehow he does.

Worse though is Eddie. Which makes no sense because Eddie is clearly the best, but someone this is the worst. 

Eddie just hates the kiss Richie plants on his cheek and shoves him off with a “I’m not gay Trashmouth, and even if I was I wouldn’t want those lips on me!” 

And that’s the thing. Normally all these things are pretty run of the mill. But not today. Today he realised that actually he _doesn’t_ know how to be good funny and not bad funny. He doesn’t make the Losers happy, he makes them sad and mad.

That’s been the case with his folks for several years now, but he thought he had it down with the Losers. Apparently not. Apparently he’s still just as annoying, just as in-a-propriate with them.

And that can’t happen. Because if it does then they’ll ignore him just like his parents do. 

If it does, Eddie, his Eds, will end up avoiding him, just like the voice said.

So he hatches a plan.

Operation Beep-Beep involves permanently Beep-ifying himself, and it will ensure that he doesn’t annoy the Losers that he loves and that he doesn’t lose his Eds. 

He doesn’t like the plan, but what else can he do? He can’t lose Eds and the Losers. He can’t.

Phase 1 consists of not being as sexual anymore. 

He thinks he’s been doing pretty well in hiding just how gay he is for Eddie, all things considered (like considering how short Eddie’s shorts are, and how cute Eddie’s face is, and how beautifully Eddie Eddie is). Even the fateful kiss was only a cheek kiss which is likely almost entirely no-homo – like, maybe an eighth homo total. Which is like only half the letter h when you think about it.

But he can’t just stop all his daily sex references completely (after all he totally lost his virginity at age 11, he has a rep to keep up). If he cuts it out altogether then Eddie will notice and ask him why he now sounds like an extra celibate nun, and Richie will have to confess he doesn’t want to be annoying and in-a-propriate. And then Eddie will ask him why he wants to do that and he will have to confess it’s because he doesn’t want to lose his Eds, which will lead him to telling about he feels about him, because Eds is as smart as a whip covered in razors when it comes to getting things out of Richie. 

So Richie’s cunning plan is to keep on chattering as normal, but just keep everything like super-hetero. That way Eddie won’t suspect anything is wrong and force him to confess his secrets, but Eddie also won’t get grossed out and hate Richie more than he probably already does. 

The next time they’re together in Eddie’s room, lying on the floor and reading comic books and complaining about school, he decided to trial this new procedure out. He’s going to be smooth and clandestine like a lubricated secret agent. No problem. Smooth and clandestine.

“Eddie’” he pipes up, breaking the silenced they had lapsed into. “Would you rather drown in a vagina or be crushed to death by boobs?”

The silence returns with a vengeance. 

Maybe Richie doesn’t sound as super-hetero as he though he did.

“What? Why would you ask me that?” Eddie shrieks.

“Come on Eds”, Richie plunges forward gamely, hoping he can salvage this. “What would it be – have your head crushed by a giant nipple or drown in a sea of clitorises?”

It does not appear he can salvage this. Eddie has turned maroon.

“Richie! Why would I answer that? That’s so – you’re so – disgus – annoying!”

He’s annoying. He wasn’t homo at all and he’s still annoying. 

“Just wondering Spaghetti! No need to lose your hair net!” he squeaks out, before burying his face back in the comic book, hiding his own rapidly reddening face, and the tears which are totally not swimming in his eyes.

It takes him five minutes before he can blink them back, and even then he decides to cut his losses and run, with just a hasty “See you later Spaghetti!” before he shoves out the room. He’s not sure he can keep his voice steady for any longer than that.

Ok, so maybe hetero-only chat was a no-go. Talking about sex stuff still makes Eddie mad, which will make Eddie hate him. But simply stopping talking about boning altogether will make Eddie ask him what’s wrong, which will mean Richie has to confess which will also make Eddie hate him. Solution – stop talking. Stop talking about anything. Well, obviously not anything anything. Everyone, even his parents would notice if she just didn’t talk at all.

So Phase 2 is easier – just talk _less_. No blabbering means no need to freak Spaghetti out, but by doing it super smooth like (for real this time) Eddie won’t notice what he’s doing. 

Contrary to popular belief Richie _can_ stop talking. Everyone assumes that jabbering is like breathing for him, but nope - the Trashmouth has always had to deliberately turn the trashmouth on. True, once he gets going he does find it hard to stop, but he knows when to start in the first place and when to not open his garbage mouth at all. 

He could yammer Went’s ear off the way he did when he was a kid, but what would be the point? Went doesn’t like his yammers, so he stays quiet as a gagged mouse at home.

But the Losers always loved his yammers – Bev would laugh, Eddie would giggle, Mike would chuckle, Eddie would giggle, Stan would smile slightly, Eddie would giggle and Eddie would giggle (not sure if he mentioned that last one or not, but it’s super important).

But after the Incident, he knew that not being able to stop once he got going led to everyone being sad. When he was little (not Eddie little of course, but like littler than he was now) he might have been okay with that, because, hey a reaction was a reaction right? Now though he wanted happy reactions, not sad ones, and to do that, to not be in-a-propriate he had to stop before he got going. Just talk a little bit and STOP.

And somewhat surprisingly, Phase 2 was delivered super slick. Slicker than the time Bill tried gelling his hair back (Richie had tears in his eyes from laughing so hard, and he almost cracked a rib once Eddie had pointed out Bill looked like a sealion). He’d chuck his two cents into every conversation the Losers had, but wouldn’t empty his change jar the way he used to. He’d talk and then…stop. It worked. No one was sad. Of course this also kind of made Richie a little bit sad. Because while it was great that he wasn’t annoying his friends, this also proved that actually they never liked his patented yammers at all. Which was…well it was a something.

He was trying not to think about this fact one day when he and Eddie were walking back from the Barrens, and Eddie was chattering on about college decisions and Richie hadn’t said a word in like five minutes and Eddie didn’t seem to care. Hadn’t even noticed that Richie had resisted saying something when Eddie mentioned that he was thinking “long and hard” about his decision. At least Eddie wasn’t annoyed or sad at Richie. At least he could congratulate himself on delivering Phase 2 as sneakily as a stealthy ninja-spy-cat.

“So I’ve noticed you’ve been talking a lot less lately. What’s wrong?” Eddie asked.

Shit. 

The ninja-spy-cat had just tripped the alarm. Abort.

“Wh-what do you mean?” he croaked out, resolutely facing forwards and avoiding looking at Eddie.

“Normally you love making ‘chucks’. But the past week you haven’t really made any jokes at all.”

“I thought you said my jokes weren’t funny.”

“They’re not.”

“Well, my dear Eddie…” Richie was struggling to keep the hope out of his voice. If Eddie had noticed this then maybe he missed the way Richie used to be. Maybe he liked Old Richie, and didn’t just find him annoying. Maybe if Richie just turned his head to the right, he would see Eddie looking back at him with those big doe eyes, and Richie would confess everything, and cry, and Eddie would hug him and tell him everything would be alright, and then everything would be alright….

He turned his head to the right. Eddie wasn’t even looking at him. He was picking dirt out of his fingernails.

“Well, Spaghetti. Everything’s peachy keen.”

“Oh, well that’s cool.” Eddie said. He paused for a few seconds, glanced briefly back at Richie before he turned with a “Bye” and walked up the driveway and straight into his house.

Richie was left, alone, on the sidewalk. He stood there, alone, for another four minutes. It took him that long to summon the will to walk the rest of the way home.

For the most part, Phase 3 isn’t too bad. Like not the absolutely worse thing in the world. If he had to choose between Phase 3 and, say, _actually_ having to have sex with Mrs Kaspbrak, then he’d probably pick the former. It just involves touching everyone less. Not utterly terrible, all in all. Stan even seems to prefer a formal handshake to a nice hair ruffle for some mad reason. 

With Eddie it’s harder though ( _everything is harder with Eddie_ ). Richie grins and waggles his eyebrows when he thinks this, even though he’s alone in his room. So then he runs to the bathroom and thinks _everything is harder with Eddie_ again so he can see himself grin and waggle his eyebrows in the mirror, proving that at least someone liked his delicious boner joke. He misses having audience.

He’s not sure he can’t not touch Eddie at all though, he might starve. Billiam handily presents the solution, when Richie notices that he and Eddie have plenty of bro hugs. It takes Richie a couple of days to build his nerve to try this with Eddie, and to his delight, it seems to be accepted. He feels ridiculous doing it, trying to keep chest contact to an absolute minimum and instead adding in a whole bunch of manly back slaps to try and prove how absolutely hereto they are to anyone watching. He wants to pinch Eddie’s cheek, or plant a kiss right on it. He wants to pinch and kiss Eddie’s other cheeks as well of course. But perhaps most of all, he wants to have a proper hug again, to wrap his noodle arms around his Spaghetti until they fuse together and become some giant walking bowl of noodle-spaghetti. Noodlegehtti they can call themselves. Maybe Spaghoodle. Instead he just slaps Eddie on the back, and Eddie slaps him right back.

Richie gets by on this limited diet, this bread and gruel, of Eds-touch, for a few weeks.

But then one day he has a run-in with Belch (who by Richie’s count, is repeating his senior year for the fourth time) in the bathroom.

 _At least_ , he thinks as Belch splits his lip open, I’ve proven Went wrong. 

As his head is dunked in the toilet, Richie remembers his dad saying the bullies would leave him alone if he didn’t antagonise them.

 _But I didn’t even say anything to him this time. He just saw me alone and came right for me. What do you think of that, pops?_ Richie asks himself when he hears his glasses get crushed underfoot.

While lying on the floor and taking a few swift kicks to the robs, he can at least console himself with the fact that Belch maybe isn’t as bad as he used to be. Richie still sees a couple of other faces hanging with Belch sometimes during his BIG SOMETHING dreams, and he thinks they used to be even worse. If they ever existed that is.

But the consolation doesn’t get him very far. Bloody and damp, and wincing with every step, all Richie wants at that point is a hug with his Eds. Maybe this time he can hold him a little longer and a little closer because he’s hurt, and everyone knows (or everyone should know), that hugs with Eds can make everything better. Instead Eddie gives him the gift of a shrieked “Don’t touch me!” as soon as Richie opens his arms. 

“What happened to you? You look disgusting!” Eddie chokes out. He even clenches his left hand into a fist and plunges a finger down into the middle the way he used to with his aspirator.

Not trusting what will happen if he opens his mouth, Richie merely shrugs.

 _At least he marched me to the nurse’s office_ , he thinks to himself. _He cared that much_ , he tries to cheer himself up with.

He just wishes Eddie had held his hand as he led him there, rather than pointedly walking three feet ahead of him. He just wishes he’d stayed and maybe patched Richie up himself the way he used to. Instead of leaving. Like he did.

Phase 4 is entirely unintentional, but happens anyway. It seems the universe has noticed his plan and done him the solid of isolating him from the rest of the Losers. Great. If he’s not there, he can’t annoy anyone.

See, now that they’re Nearly-Adults, everyone is busy doing Nearly-Adult Things – jobs, internships, lots of homework, all that terrible, terrible dull stuff. Eddie seems to spend half his life working on extra-credit assignments and researching colleges, which Richie thinks is pretty awesome for him. Stan and Mike seem to be spending basically all their time together hanging out alone in Stan’s bedroom for some reason. 

Richie doesn’t really go in for Nearly-Adult Things, and it’s not because he’s scared of being a Nearly-Adult or anything. He doesn’t really need money or extra credit or work experience to get into college, and he’s certainly not going to take the risk of being annoying, and needy and in-a-propriate with other people by getting a job or joining a club or any of that malarkey. He’s barely got his behaviour under control with Eddie, no point in risking exposing anyone else to the Trashmouth. Chernobyl Richie, that’s what they should call him. Add concrete and keep away.

The end result is that while Richie is still just…here, all the others are busy. He can’t just go the arcade after school with Bill, or take five smoke breaks a day with Bev, because they’ve got their Things, they’re isolated from Chernobyl Richie while Patient Zero himself is still…here. He keeps his lanky birdnest of a head down. Now whenever the Losers do something, it has to be organised, someone has to plan it and check who is available, rather than them all just spending all their free time together. As the months go on, the Things pile up and these events get fewer and fewer. 

So he’s quite delighted when one day Eddie grabs them all at lunch and sets up plans to go to the Barrens after school on Friday. He’s even more delighted when Eddie checks with Ben, Bev, Bill, Mike and Stan that everyone can make it and they all check their planners (seriously, it’s not just Stan anymore, they all run their lives around these little books, it’s terrifying) and everyone can. That delight pops like a soggy dirigible when Eddie doesn’t check with Richie. Richie sits next to him for the entire lunch period and makes sure to contribute to the conversation every two minutes and thirty seconds precisely (it’s kind of hard to tell time accurately when you’re having to read it upside down from Ben’s chunky Casio across the table, but he manages). Twnety-five minutes (and ten well-timed comments) later, Richie still has no invites. Still none by the end of the day, or the next day, or the day after that, even though he walked home with Eddie for two of those.

He spends that Friday night alone in his room, listening to the Cure. He smokes half a pack. He doesn’t cry. There’s no need to.

He doesn’t dream about the BIG SOMETHING that night. Instead, he dreams about concrete.

So his heart doesn’t know what to make of things when the next Friday, Eddie collars him outside of class.

“Richie this week has been complete shit. Could you come round tonight with a bottle of something and we can hang out? Just the two of us.” Eddie seems to get all this out in a single breath.

Richie is pretty sure his mouth is gawping like a guppy after a root canal.

“S-sure Eds. That sounds great.” He gasps out after an embarrassingly long interval.

Eddie smiles. “Thanks. Come round at like 8, my mum will be gone by then.”

Richie’s can feel that grin growing wider than the Grand Canyon. His jaw hurts, and he’s pretty sure he can hear the muscles creak and groan.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world Spaghetti.” He allows himself the nickname, but he resists making a joke about missing Mrs K.

Swiping a bottle of booze from his old man’s liquor cabinet is no big deal for a practiced swiper like himself. But he’s not sure what’s up with this particular bottle, because it seems to contain a tiny and powerful Booze Wizard inside it. Well, that’s the only explanation Richie can think of, because somehow, magically, everything that night seems like how it used to be. Fun and comfortable, like a marshmallow bouncy castle.

Sure, Eddie seems to dominate the conversation at first. And Richie’s voice is more of a crackle initially, but he thinks that has more to do with smoking too much recently, and not from never using his voice or anything. But after a little while, the Booze Wizard’s spell has taken effect and Richie finds that he’s enjoying himself. He’s talking. Regularly talking, just saying what he wants, not waiting for a pre-assigned schedule. He tells jokes. Dirty jokes. He’s having something that can only be described as fun. 

Yet the real proof that sorcery is involved is the fact that Eddie seems to be enjoying himself just as much. Eddie laughs at his jokes, Eddie makes his own jokes, Eddie looks happy. Not grossed out, not annoyed not like someone who hates his former-but-maybe-not-former-maybe-still-best friend. 

In fact there must be a magician involved, because while Richie’s eyes are shittier than the bat version of Daredevil (Batty Murdock), he’s pretty sure he can see that Eddie is sitting on his bed right next to Richie. Like, close to him. Like, propped up against him. Like, he doesn’t mind Richie’s arm around his shoulders. Almost, almost like he seems to be happy to half-hold Richie’s hand and casually intertwine their fingers together.

This can’t be happening. Silence falls for a few moments, but it doesn’t feel like all the other silences Richie has spent the past few months wallowing in. It feels….it feels like a lot. It feels like maybe this is actually happening. 

“I’ve missed you.” Eddie says after a while. Great chunks of concrete crumble and fall.

“What do you mean Eds?” Richie responds as soon he can muster the brainpower to do so.

“It’s like I never get to see you anymore, and I’ve missed that Chee.” Chee. Richie’s heart is thumping so loud, he thinks seismologists around the world must be staring at their instruments in confusion.

“I know everyone’s busy lately, everyone’s got stuff going on,” Eddie continues “and everyone’s doing…”

“Nearly-Adult Things?” Richie ventures, which makes Eddie giggle. Eddie giggles. Earthquake alarms sound all across the country.

“Yeah, that. It’s just…I’ve missed…hanging out…being with you.” Eddie sounds almost shy.

“Me too.”

“Don’t tell the others, but…you’re my favourite.” The Booze Wizard says in Eddie’s voice.

“You’ve always been my favourite Eds.” The Booze Wizard makes Richie respond.

It must be a wizard. There’s no way Eddie is looking at him like that otherwise. Not deep into his eyes. It can’t be just Eddie making that soft, tender smile on his face. A sorcerer is making Eddie’s thumb slide softly back and forth across the back of Richie’s hand. A mage is gently pushing Eddie’s face forwards towards him. Some arcane master makes Richie’s do the same. This can’t be happening otherwise. Eddie can’t look at him like that. Can’t be softly closing his eyes. Their lips cannot be that close.

They are.

There is a great gust of wind from the other side of the room, the sound of a rhinoceros having a heart attack.

“I KNEW IT! I knew it would be YOU to do this!”

Mrs Sonia Kaspbrak stands in the doorway, huge and imposing.

“I thought it might be that Marsh slut who would try and corrupt him at first, but then I knew, I knew it was going to be YOU, you dirty, FILTHY boy”

“Mom…” Eddie manages to gasp out.

Richie doesn’t say anything. Richie can’t say anything.

“How could you DO this to me Eddie-bear? How COULD you?”

“Mommy I…”

“No, don’t be a stupid little boy, it’s not your fault. It’s THIS one’s fault, sneaking in under my rooftop and doing who knows what filth to my boy! Get out! Get out of my house! GET OUT!”

Sonia pauses for a moment, gasping like a shipwrecked man, gathering breath for the next onslaught.

Richie eventually manages to gasp out a plaintive “E-Eds?”

“I think you should go” Eddie says softly.

“But…”

“Please.” Eddie won’t even look at him properly. His eyes flick desperately between Richie’s face and the window. He doesn’t even want to see the Trashmouth’s face.

Richie can’t say anything else. Eddie wants him to leave. He leaves.

He’s not sure when he gets back home. It might even be morning by the time he crawls into bed. It must have been hours he spent wondering the streets. Maybe he was crying. Maybe not. He doesn’t know. 

He does know that he ruined it. Foolishly, he thought he had been getting better. Stupid. Trying to be less annoying, less in-a-propriate, less gross, less needy. Stupid. Nothing had changed. He knew he could never be Eddie’s boyf- (he couldn’t even complete that thought). But maybe he could have been his best friend at least, or a friend, or someone who didn’t let his horrible thoughts get the best of him and try and…Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid.

Now Eddie would know. And things had been getting better. Richie had really tried, and he had hated it, and he felt like he was shrinking and rotting and disappearing into nothing, but it was worth it! It was worth it for not annoying the Losers, for Eddie not being angry at him, Eddie not being sad, not hating him. Eddie not knowing what Richie thought about. And the worse thing is that Eddie had given him a lifeline and Richie had thrown it away and ruined it.

No. The worse thing is that he ruined it for Eddie. Richie had set a fire and run away and now that fire might consume his Eds (not his, NOT his). Sonia would be mad at Eddie, would try and fix Eddie and lock him away. Richie had done that. He had made that happen. He had ruined himself, his friendship and gotten Eddie in trouble. Richie the Ruiner.

That’s what he did. Richie ruined.


	2. Chapter 2

Eddie knows that he is a lot of things to Richie. He is Eddie, he is Eds, he is Richie’s Eds, he is a bowl of spaghetti, he is cute and cute and cute again apparently. Once he was even Eddie Bear, but luckily that nickname was the one veto Richie actually paid attention to. But to Eddie, Richie is kind of a mystery. Which is sort of ridiculous, because Richie is the most obvious person Eddie has ever known. It’s impossible to miss Richie or to not notice what he’s doing and wonder why on earth he’s doing it. Or at least Eddie finds that impossible. 

What actually goes on in his head though, that’s the puzzley enigma. Because he doesn’t like to tell you. Sure most of the time he won’t stop constantly updating you about whatever random thought happens to be going through his head at that particular moment, but the other stuff, those hidden things that he doesn’t want to share with you, those are completely unknown. Sometimes Eddie has considered the idea that actually there is no other stuff, that Richie’s brain consists of nothing more than an endless parade of chucks, sex, ways to tease Eddie and mix tapes. But Eddie knows Maggie and Went, and can imagine what it must be like for Richie to live with them. There must be other stuff. Must be.

Which means that one thing Eddie can be sure of is that Richie is the complete opposite of him, because Richie is brave. He must be brave to have those parents with that personality and come out unscathed. Or seemingly unscathed. Lightly scathed.

While Richie does like to tell Eddie he’s brave, Eddie knows this complete bullshit, even if it is a nice bullshit. Because above all else Eddie is a coward. Fear takes up a lot of his life. He’s scared of his mom and what she did to him and what she will do to him and how he can’t stop what she did to him no matter how hard he tries. He’s scared of disease, he’s scared of dirt and blood, he’s scared of half of the kids in school, he’s scared of Derry, he’s scared of not being able to escape Derry, he’s scared of those things he sees in his dreams at night and he’s scared that all his fears will one day make him just like his mother. He doesn’t think Richie is scared of anything, and that makes him brave and Eddie a coward, and that also scares him.

Eddie Kaspbrak is sure of that. Eddie Kaspbrak is sure of a lot of things in his life, but Richie Tozier is not one of them.

Unfortunately, his feelings for Richie _are_ abundantly clear. Like shockingly so. He may have though both Bill and Ben were blatantly unsubtle when it came to Bev, but they were molehills compared to the Everest of obviousness when it came to how Eddie felt about Richie. Which is the problem. Because those feelings should absolutely NOT be happening.

When Eddie was little, actually little, because no he’s not that little now no matter what Richie says. He’s a perfectly normal height thank you very much, and it’s not his fault half his friends apparently sleep on medieval torture racks. But when he was _actually_ little he knew that the only people he wanted in his life were his momma and his friends. Roll on a few years and he wasn’t so sure about the first one, as Eddie was increasingly sure that she might try and drown him in a vat of cotton wool if she ever got the chance.

But he loved his friends and was very happy to spend all the time he could chip out of his mom’s clutches with them. What he couldn’t understand was why anyone would want anything else. The idea of girlfriends and sexual relations was objectively horrifying right? Like everyone should know that, shouldn’t they? Why the boys’ jaws were dragging along the floor when Bev was at the quarry was a mystery to Eddie. Yes she was pretty and everything, but did they know what would happen if they had sex with her? Diseases and illness and parasites and bugs and growths and fluids and pustules and other things that sent Eddie scrambling for his aspirator like his life depended on it. And as his life did depend on it, he thinks he was perfectly justified in acting like that. If the others had any sense they would to.

Now Eddie wasn’t stupid or anything. It did occur to him that maybe the fact that his jaw stayed on his face was the fact that he’d rather shift his gaze elsewhere. Which wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t his fault, or Bev’s fault, or even Bill’s fault that Bill was clearly more pretty than Bev. Apart from that time he tried the hair gel of course, but he thinks they were both happy to forget about that day. And Richie obviously wasn’t _pretty_ exactly, not with those glasses, or teeth, or limbs that made him look like the result of a mad scientist’s experiment to see what would happen if you crossed a beaver with a giraffe and fed it nothing but sugar, but still…Richie was certainly _something_ to look at.

Which was a problem, because his mom had made it perfectly clear that while having sexual relations with a girl was one of the worst things imaginable, having them with a boy was beyond catastrophic. Eddie wasn’t entirely sure what the act itself would really consist of, but he knew it was apparently really gross and the inevitable diseases afterwards were terrifying. 

At least, that what she told him. But he did have some doubts about what she said at times. It couldn’t all be true. After all, he’d already caught her lying about how his skin would turn bright green if he didn’t take a shower every single night.

And then came the summer when he found that she hadn’t just been lying about the green skin, she’s been lying about the grass allergy, which was bullshit; and the chocolate allergy, which was bullshit; and his asthma, which was bullshit; and his weak heart; which was bullshit; and the forty-three other types of pills that were neatly stacked up in the kitchen cupboard, because each and every single one was BULLSHIT. So if all of that was bullshit, then surely what she said about sex with boys and girls was also a pile of cow droppings. If that was so, then he could look at Richie all he liked and it wouldn’t matter how close to the floor his jaw was. It wouldn’t matter if they kissed or did…things. Richie certainly sounded like he wanted to do things, in fact he rarely shut up about it, so maybe Eddie could want to do them as well.

However one day, not long after he’d had this little revelation, he’d discovered that actually it hadn’t _all_ been bullshit. Because actually the sesame allergy had been real, it really did make his tongue swell up to the size an anaconda, and that hadn’t just been his mom’s excuse to keep him away from fatty burgers. He’d still blushed scarlet when Richie had said he should get used to putting organs that large in his mouth, and his insides had still twisted in that way when he’d followed that up with a wink.

But if the sesame allergy was real, then maybe there were some other truths after all amongst his mother’s lie. So the next day he dragged Ben to the library and got him to show Eddie all the books he’d need to actually find out what diseases and allergies were real and which were simply figments of her panicked imagination. And, after swearing Ben to a vow of secrecy (which was easy, Ben would do anything to stop Richie finding out about his New Kids on the Block posters), he even enlisted his help into researching homosexual sexual relations. To Eddie’s sinking horror it turned out that actually gay sex did involve doing THAT, and that AIDS was actually a real, terrifying condition and not just random letters his mom had picked out from the bowl of alphabet soup that night she had told him about the disease which would kill if he ever so much as touched a drop of someone else’s blood. 

So while Eddie knew perfectly well he wasn’t brave, he was for the most part able to deal with his old fears of all things gross. Even those nights when he had dreams of the summer he couldn’t remember properly, those nights where his sleep was infested with snatches of a man with his limbs falling off, with wrinkled rotting flesh, and blood, and pus, and decay, and shit, and piss, and filth covering his whole body….no, it’s okay, he doesn’t need his aspirator. Even after those nightmares he could deal with all that stuff, because it wasn’t real, it was only thoughts and thoughts can’t kill you. 

Homosexual sexual relations though, those could kill you. Even if you didn’t get sick, Derry might kill you for having them anyway. 

Hell, if somehow Eddie could avoid both these fates it still wouldn’t remove the fact that Richie probably wouldn’t want to have them with Eddie anyway. Yes he flirted with him, and hugged him and kissed him on the cheek approximately seven hundred times a day, but that didn’t _mean_ anything because he always did that. That would be like saying Richie breathing or Richie’s heart beating _meant_ something. And anyway Richie would also talk about girl’s boobs and butts and other parts of their anatomy, some of which Eddie was pretty sure Richie was just making up, like _eight_ hundred times a day, so clearly he didn’t _actually_ think about Eddie that way. People only liked boys or girls, even people as weird as Richie, and considering how Richie looked at Sally Mueller when she was in her cheerleading outfit, he was pretty sure that was how Richie felt for real, and the way he was with Eddie was just him having fun. 

Eddie was genuinely grateful for the flirting, even though it was just a joke. It was just a part of their friendship, and that friendship was utterly utterly important. Therefore, while he always wanted to plant a kiss right back on Richie’s cheek, he knew he couldn’t, because then Richie would know what Eddie thought about, that he thought all the flirting and hugs and cheek kisses were actually the best thing in the world, and then Richie would stop because unlike Eddie he was only joking and didn’t mean it for real, because Richie liked girl’s boobs and butts and other bits, and Richie would freak out and might even hate Eddie for using him like that and no, he doesn’t need his aspirator, he’s FINE. 

It just meant Eddie had to keep his thoughts as thoughts, because thoughts can’t hurt you. Richie would be Richie and Eddie wouldn’t say anything and everything would be just peachy keen.

Which was why Richie not being Richie anymore was such a disaster. 

Because Richie just stopped talking. Normally someone being a little quieter than normal would barely be noticeable, but this was Richie Tozier. Everything he did was loud and obvious, so not being loud and obvious was in itself screamingly obvious. Eddie never understood the term ‘silence is deafening’ until Richie decided to embody it. Every few minutes he’d suddenly pipe up and you would see a twinkle of his old self, before he’d abruptly tumble back into a blank nothingness. Richie not talking was for Eddie as mysterious and devastating as the sun not only failing to rise one morning, but actually sucking all light out of the world. Everything was now flat and dark, like some terribly charred pancake. 

While Eddie might have been a coward, he was certainly determined when he set his mind to a task. And so he donned his little imaginary detective hat and decided to solve the case.

Reviewing the evidence, Eddie remembers that two days before The Silencing, he’d briefly seen a look of hurt on Richie’s face when Eddie shoved him off after his daily cheek kiss. At the time the look had been so fleeting, disappearing quickly behind the usual shit-eating grin, that Eddie had assumed he’d imagined it. It was possible though he supposed, that Richie had thought that Eddie actually wanted him to go away and shut up, as utterly ridiculous as that prospect was. 

Because surely Richie had recognised the code. The code they had been using for years, the one that meant that when Eddie stopped Richie from doing something like that it was a cipher for _My mom totally saw you do that thing yesterday and ranted at me like an angry baboon for 45 minutes about how I could possibly let a filthy boy do such a thing, and therefore I need you to cut it out for a couple of weeks until she stops pressing her face to the window waiting for us to walk home from school together and come charging out if she see so much as a whisper of the aforementioned thing, but once she stops doing that you should totally start doing the thing again, ok?_ Duh. Perfectly obvious. Okay, maybe not obvious to most but not only was Richie annoyingly smart he also knew Eddie better than anyone else on the planet, including himself. He’d always known the unspoken code before hadn’t he? Right?

And what exactly was Eddie supposed to do? Say “Hey Richie, as soon as my mom stops watching would you mind planting a big old gay kiss on my big old gay face?” Eddie was allowed to think those thoughts, because thoughts can’t hurt you, but speaking those thoughts and trying to make actual physical actions happen could hurt you, and things that can hurt you are terrifying. And Eddie was a coward, and cowards don’t do terrifying things.

So with that theory ruled out, he turned to the last time he’d seen Richie before The Silencing, when they’d been in his room half-reading comics and Richie had been going on about sex, an entirely normal situation really. For a coward though these normalities were still petrifying because they might at any moment expose Eddie’s utter lack of understanding of the subject matter. While he was pretty sure most of Richie’s alleged experience was complete bluster, he still clearly had at least _some_ concept of girls and their…parts, and what boys were supposed to do with those parts. Eddie’s mind was nothing but a blank pit on these matters, but revealing that would obviously lead to Richie finding out what he did think about and then those thoughts wouldn’t be safe anymore which would be a disaster.

Which meant that when Richie blurted out with all the confidence of an arrogant flamingo, “Would you rather drown in a vagina or be crushed to death by boobs?” Eddie leapt right to his panic station. He has no idea how to answer that. Like what can he say – _Neither, because I’m totally gay and would much rather choke to death on your -_. No he’s not even going to finish that thought.

“What? Why would you ask me that?” he shrieks instead. Shrieking often stops Richie pushing any further.

“Come on Eds”, Richie says, pushing forwards anyway, “what would it be – have your head crushed by a giant nipple or drown in a sea of clitorises?” 

Eddie can feel himself blushing. He doesn’t know anything about boobs or clitorises. What even is a clitoris? Is it dangerous? He bets it’s dangerous.

But if he says that to Richie then Richie will know what Eddie thinks, including what Eddie thinks about him, and that cannot be allowed.

“Richie! Why would I answer that? That’s so - ” he interrupts himself. Can’t make it sound like it’s the conversation that’s freaking him out. He feels guilty, but he’ll have to blame Richie.

“– you’re so – disgus –“, he chides himself. Can’t sound grossed out by boobs or clitorises, whatever they are, “annoying!” That’s better. 

“Just wondering Spaghetti! No need to lose your hair net!”, Richie says turning back to comic book calm as you please. 

Richie doesn’t suspect anything. All is fine.

He says nothing else and keeps his face buried in the comic book for the next 20 minutes. He doesn’t even turn a page. He then gets up leaves with nothing more than a cheery “See you later Spaghetti!”

Maybe all isn’t fine. Maybe Richie does suspect and had to get away from him. Maybe the one thing that brave Richie is scared of is his best friend lusting after him like the terrible pervert that he is. Eddie thinks running away like that is what he would do if he was in Richie’s situation.

Yet even more horrifying than that theory was the idea that maybe Richie just didn’t want to talk anymore. When he first met Richie in kindergarten he assumed that talking was something that he could no more stop than Bill could stop stuttering. He imagined that if ever put a cork in his mouth Richie would swell up and up like Violet Beauregarde before exploding in a shower of confetti and gummy worms. Later he realised that Richie was an entertainer, that he lived for the reactions to his antics, which was great because Eddie lived for those antics. But now this symbiotic relationship might have collapsed, and the only reason Eddie could see for that would be if something was seriously wrong.

Occasionally Eddie would catch Richie’s bright bug eyes darkening and shrinking and staring at the ground, and his nonstop deluge of chatter tapering to a mere drizzle. Which meant Eddie would have to begin the maddening game of trying to find different ways to ask Chee what was actually the matter, and each one would be deflected by a joke. He’d once even had a dream where he and Richie were knights fighting a duel, but Richie’s armour was literally made of jokes, a coat of chain mail where every link was another dick joke or tease about Eddie’s height, or just the word ‘cute’ over and over again, and every time Eddie struck a blow against the armour a fluorescent green _Ed’s gets off a good one_ would appear in the air. By the end of the dream Eddie had been forced to his knees and was staring up at his opponents flushed and grinning face. At which point Richie’s armour had disappeared and he’s started using a different sword altogether on Eddie, but that wasn’t something Eddie could exactly dwell on in public without having to hold his bag in front of his lap.

Even if Eddie did manage to badger something out of Richie in these chatter-drizzle situations, all he’d ever get was a quick mumble about “the ‘rents” before Richie would immediately perk back up again and start making jokes at double the normal rate, because Richie was brave and could charge through anything like the knight he was. With Richie’s chatter now reduced to a full on drought, this could mean that something was seriously wrong and maybe Eddie could actually help this time rather than just bother him as he normally did by fluttering around him and squawking and fussing the way his mother did.

So when they were walking home one afternoon and Richie hadn’t said anything for a full five agonising minutes despite the fact that Eddie had said no less than six different innuendoes that would normally earn him a quick jab to the ribs with a bony noodle elbow, he decided to gather what little bravery he had and just ask.

“So I’ve noticed you’ve been talking a lot less lately. What’s wrong?” he inquired, striking the first blow in their duel.

But Richie didn’t parry the strike the way he normally would. Instead he stared determinedly away from Eddie and replied “Wh-what do you mean?” his voice sounding like it was being dragged out of his mouth against its will.

Eddie tried a different sword stroke. “Normally you love making ‘chucks’. But the past week you haven’t really made any jokes at all.”

“I thought you said my jokes weren’t funny.”

“They’re not.” That was a bit more familiar, he recognised this particular move. Richie would follow it up with a squawk of faux-outrage and maybe a _Oh but my dearest Eddiekins always loved my darlin’ little jokes_ in his Southern Belle voice. Eddie just had to let it happen and work out another way of asking.

But then Richie threw his sword down. “Well, my dear Eddie…well, Spaghetti. Everything’s peachy keen.”

What.

No joke, no jape, no voice, no pinch of the cheek, no hair ruffle and only one half-hearted nickname. Richie had taken Eddie’s playbook, set it on fire and thrown the ashes to the winds.

“Oh, well that’s cool”, was all Eddie could get out. He could feel his breath quickening, the begins of the whistling sound squeaking out from lungs and his finger itched for his old useless aspirator. This was utterly unknown, and the unknown is terrifying to a coward. Tears of panic stinging his eyes, he avoided looking at Richie, squeezed out a hasty “bye” and cut his losses.

Ten minutes later he’d managed to calm his breathing and was sat on the bed, completely confused. What the hell did this mean? Richie had _never_ flat out denied everything when Eddie had asked him anything, even that time when he was 9 years old and he had asked Richie why his new airfix plane had a broken wing and why Richie was trying to stick that wing back on with a band aid, a band aid that he’d evidently torn from his knee judging by the scab that had started bleeding again. While Eddie had dabbed Neosporin onto his knee, Richie had owned right up and in the end only begged Eddie for a kiss to make his boo-boo better a mere dozen or so times. 

This made no sense at all. If Richie was hurt or scared, because of Eddie or someone else, he would never just lie like that. Everything was clearly not as fine as an enthusiastic nectarine no matter was he claimed, and Eddie was left muddled and distraught. Richie might have been a mystery, but he was a dependable mystery at least and this new mute absence left Eddie’s heart floating adrift.

For a brief moment Eddie did think a tugboat had appeared on the horizon to drag him back to shore. Because two days later he was at his locker when Richie suddenly marched determinedly up to him and enveloped Eddie in a hug that was clearly supposed to be an absurd impression of Bill, with absolutely minimal intimacy, four slaps to his back with the level of enthusiasm that is normally only appropriate to use on someone who is choking to death, and accompanied by a deep-voiced “What up my main man?” For a gloriously happy few hours it appeared Richie had returned to him in a blaze of ridiculous glory. But then he did the exact same hug at lunch, and when Eddie left for track practice after school and at every other time they saw one another for the rest of the week. This wasn’t Richie debuting his new Bill the Bro impression. This was him loudly demonstrating to Eddie that he was incredibly straight and was rightly grossed out by their previous intimacy. The second theory was correct – Richie had rumpled him; his thoughts were out there and no longer safe and this was horrible.

His heart ship was now sinking in a sea of loneliness and guilt. The days grew flat and lifeless, and the nights were worse. Whenever he finally drifted of he would invariably find himself floating in a dank sewer, alone in the dark for seemingly hours, before suddenly a scabbed and rotting arm would burst out of the greywater, its lesioned hand would clamp around his mouth and its decaying fingers would force their way past his lips and down his throat; before dragging him down with a yank, down into the filth to suffocate, and just at the moment his lungs would finally fail and he would gasp for breath and his lungs would flood with blood and piss and shit and grime and disease, he would awake and find himself soaked with sweat in his bed, shivering and retching. 

After one particularly bad night, one where the leper had wrapped Eddie in his decaying limbs and pulled his face into his maggot-ridden chest, Eddie was exhausted and on edge for the rest of the day. Everything, from the mud on Mike’s shoes to Ben’s runny nose, set his nerves jangling, his heart a-thumping and sweat prickling on his brow. So when Richie appeared before him, blood pooled in his nose and down his chin and what was clearly toilet water dripping from his hair, his arms outstretched ready to seize Eddie and drag him into an embrace…well, he panicked. He wasn’t proud of the fact, but he was a coward after all. That’s what cowards do. They shriek and shove and reach for phantom aspirators. 

He can’t even bring himself to touch Richie as he leads him to the nurse’s office, because he can still feel the maggots crawling on his skin. He can’t stay in the office for more than a few seconds, because he can still taste the noxious air. But most cowardly of all, he can’t bear to face the pitiful, broken look on Richie’s face.

Eddie begins to think that maybe this is all his fault after all. Somehow he has hurt Richie, he has damaged the brave, indestructible knight. He has to fix this. He cannot let Richie suffer alone. So the next day he finds Bev, Ben, Bill, Mike and Stan and has them all clear their schedules for this Friday night and tells them his plan. At lunch he sits down next to Richie and Bev and unveils his idea for their big Losers night at the Barrens, repeating it to Ben, Bill, Mike and Stan in turn as each of them arrives, and they all pretend this is the first they’ve heard and of it and all agree delightedly. He skips two track practices so he can walk home with Richie and continue to harp on about Friday night. It is going to be great. They’re going to pretend like it’s how it used to be, and this will make Richie act like HE used to be. They’re going to shower Richie with attention and if he lets him, Eddie will provide all the hugs and opportunities for jokes about his mom that Richie needs. They’re going to do whatever they can to make Richie happy again. He’s sure it’s going to work. He’s sure Richie will love it.

Richie never shows. 

Eddie hadn’t knew it was medically possible to cry as much as he does that night. But in his despair he does find an odd clarity. While almost everything in his life scares him, nothing ever scared him more than the prospect of losing Richie. Now that has happened he’s left with…well it’s not exactly bravery, more of a _positive hopelessness_. There is nothing else to lose. If it takes doing the last, terrifying, unimaginable and unlikely-to-even-work option he has left to make Richie happy again, he will do it.

He’s going to get Richie alone in a room and tell him everything. He’s going to use liquor as a bribe, because Richie used to love drinks on a Friday night and was always hilarious as a result. For a boy the size of a giraffe basketball player, he had an outstanding inability to hold his drink, and it only took a couple before he turned into a mass of flailing limbs dancing enthusiastically and terribly no matter what music was playing; and a couple more to wrap himself around Eddie like a parasitic koala bear. 

The plan might turn out a disaster but it cannot be any worse than it already is. Whatever tiny chance it has of turning out alright, it is the only option left. Whatever it takes. Even then Eddie has to do five minutes of breathing exercises before he can bring himself to march over to Richie’s locker that Friday afternoon.

“Richie this week has been complete shit. Could you come round tonight with a bottle of something and we can hang out? Just the two of us,” he blurts out in one desperate breath.

Richie’s mouth drops open. Eddie doesn’t know what that means. Richie’s silence stretches on for what feels like hours. Eddie doesn’t know what that means either.

“S-sure Eds. That sounds great” he finally whispers. Eddie knows that that means hope.

He feels as fearful as he ever has that evening, but it is a completely different kind of fear to the sort that has normally dominated his life. This is more like the giddy bundle of nerves that wraps your stomach into knots as you crest the peak of the rollercoaster. 

This fear is buoyed up on elation as the evening goes on, and it almost seems as if his desperate plan is actually working. Slowly at first, like a dinosaur being chipped out of the rock, peaks of the old Richie appear. As he jokes and laughs and teases and touches it feels like he is being built back up, brick by brick until the statue of the brave and beautiful knight stands tall once more. As Eddie, drunk more on glee than rum, shifts in close to Richie and props himself up against his side, he cannot keep the grin off his face as feels Richie’s arm hesitantly snake around his shoulders. Equally cautious, he takes Richie’s hand. When Richie’s fingers curl round his, Eddie’s heart is dragged up from the depths to float dripping in the sun.

As the rollercoaster plunges down the hill, Eddie continues with his crazy plan, his plan to say what he desperately wants and desperately doesn’t want to say and hope beyond hope that it works. Whatever it takes. He has to. Because Richie.

“I’ve missed you” he says, gripping the lap bar.

After a pause, Richie replies, “What do you mean Eds?” 

Eddie ignores every thought that is pouring through his mind, and focuses instead on the huge soft eyes staring back at him. “It’s like I never get to see you anymore, and I’ve missed that Chee. I know everyone’s busy lately, everyone’s got stuff going on, and everyone’s doing…”

Richie cuts in with, “Nearly-Adult Things?” which makes Eddie giggle the way he’s supposed to.

“Yeah, that. It’s just…” the rollercoaster is getting faster and faster, “I’ve missed…” he’s totally, “hanging out…” wonderfully, “being with you,” out of control.

“Me too.” Eddie thinks Richie’s eyes have grown delicate and hopefully hopeful.

This is it. “Don’t tell the others, but…” All or nothing. “You’re my favourite.” Whatever it takes.

“You’ve always been my favourite Eds.” 

The rollercoaster disappears and he is falling weightless.

Eddie leans in. Eddie has no idea what he’s doing. Richie leans in too. Eddie has every idea what he’s doing.

He closes his eyes. He will save Richie. He can. He will.

But then his heart clenches in terror before his brain can process the sound.

“I KNEW IT! I knew it would be YOU to do this!” His mother stands there, and the coward returns.

“I thought it might be that Marsh slut who would try and corrupt him at first, but then I knew, I knew it was going to be YOU, you dirty, FILTHY boy.”

She has turned all her ire on Richie. Eddie tries to hurl himself in front of him. “Mom…” 

“How could you DO this to me Eddie-bear? How COULD you?”

Richie’s face has turned blank. The statue has crumbled and fallen. “Mommy I…” The ship has sunk beneath the waves.

Eddie doesn’t even hear the rest of what his mother screams. He is too busy fighting the panic that is overcoming his mind. For a moment he imagines himself fighting through a stampede of clones, buffeted around by the panicking Eddie’s streaming past.

A terrible, pitiful sound emerges from Richie’s mouth. “E-Eds?”

But in this moment Eddie pushes through the crowd. It’s okay. He knows what to. Use the code. “I think you should go,” he says.

“But,” Richie gasps out.

Eddie is undeterred. “Please,” he says heavily, deliberately shifting his eyes from Richie’s face to the window, back and forth, back and forth. 

Richie leaves. But that doesn’t matter. Because while old-Richie has disappeared behind blank-Richie once again, Eddie knows he’s still there. He was here just a moment ago. And old-Richie might have been ridiculous, he might have been a knight, he might have been an infuriating mystery but above all he knew Eddie better than anyone else ever had.

Eddie tunes out his mother’s rantings, part of his brain on auto-pilot, interjecting a “Yes mom” and “Sorry mommy” as needed, but otherwise letting her tirade wash over him. Because Richie, brave and clever Richie, knows perfectly what Eddie needs in these circumstances, and anyway, Eddie had used their unspoken eye-code. Richie will wait until Sonia’s charge runs out steam and she returns huffily to her bed. Then he will wait 10 minutes for the throaty snores to start and then, as he has done a thousand times before, he will climb the tree, knock on the window and make everything better. 

Eddie used the code because he is a coward, because words make it too real; but even if they didn’t and even if Eddie wasn’t, what else was he supposed to do? His mother was right there and his mother ruins everything. But it doesn’t matter, because Richie understands, and he helps as soon as he shoves his gangly limbs through the window.

Richie does not come through the window.

Eddie doesn’t know why. 

As the hours creep by, tears drip intermittently down his face. He reviews the evening and realises the extent of his foolishness and his hope-induced fever dream. There was no rollercoaster. The boat remained on the sea floor. 

By the time the dawn’s light strikes him, Eddie knows perfectly well why his window remains empty and closed.

Old-Richie wasn’t back.

Eddie had driven him away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully this didn't feel like padding and did illuminate some things.
> 
> Also I should apologise for the absence of the rest of the Losers in this fic, I just couldn't work them in. Just know that they are just as worried about Richie as Eddie is and spent the Friday night at the Barrens frantically discussing ideas and theories.
> 
> Unfortunately it may be a while before I update, as I haven't written a word of chapter 3 yet, and as I start a new job tomorrow I understand the You've-Been-A-Proper-Adult-For-A-Long-Ass-Time-Now-And-Should-Know-What-You're-Doing Thing is to pay attention to that rather than spend my day thinking about fanfiction.


	3. Chapter 3

Mrs Kaspbrak has imposed a new grounding regime on her son, only allowing him to leave the house for school, but Eddie finds that he doesn’t really care. The sentence is pretty old hat really, being locked away barely more than a tired old cliché by this point. But what made the next four weeks an actual punishment is the complete lack of a Richie. Any other time Eddie was grounded, Richie’s lanky limbs would be breaking in through his window every evening and, after negotiating past the protests Eddie felt he was obliged to make, smuggling him out on weekends. Without his partner-in-crime, Eddie found he had no motivation for jailbreaks. And while he may have thought the previous absence of old-Richie was hard to get through, not talking to him at all was the most terrible withdrawal. The kind that left you pale and weak, numb to anything but the continual throbbing ache deep inside your chest, until you were left with nothing but a limp lifelessness. 

He doesn’t talk to, or even approach Richie whenever he sees him at school, which is hardly a difficult task considering that Richie avoids him like a particularly virulent strain of plague. Eddie cannot blame him for this. The rest of the Losers still try and talk to Richie, and then immediately report back to Eddie and tell him he’s being an idiot and that Richie desperately wants to see him again. When Eddie asks them if Richie actually said that however, they only respond with silence. If he duly asks how them _how_ they know that Richie wants that, despite scurrying immediately away upon noticing that Eddie is looking in his direction, then their silence only grows louder. It becomes ear-splitting when he inquires why Richie should even want to spend time with the boy who so clearly, and deservedly, terrifies him.

Ben keeps encouraging Eddie to approach Richie anyway, because _Love_ , he intones, _and friendship is a form of love!_ ,he hastily squeaks upon noting Eddie’s wide-eyed stare and whistling breath, _can conquer anything_. Eddie thinks that’s very sweet but pretty dumb, considering feelings of love was what sent Richie, rightfully, fleeing in the first place.

Bill tells Eddie that Richie is a dumbass, which Eddie thinks is also kinda dumb because Richie hasn’t been in anything other than AP classes since high school started, and can finish his homework in the time it takes Bill to work out which chapter they’re supposed to be reading. 

Bev bluntly, but kindly, tells Eddie that Richie is smart as fuck about everything except himself, where he is in fact as dumb as fuck. Eddie thinks…actually he thinks Bev may be onto something there. 

Because while Richie has always told ridiculous stories about his looks and charms, and how, and I quote, he is _such a legend in the sack, that songs shall be sung of his exploits with Mrs K. for generations to come_ , he’s also balanced those tales with increasingly frequent self-depreciating comments over the past few years. Eddie knows both sorts of tale are bullshit of course, that he no more has a _wang longer than an python on steroids_ , than he is _too much for pest control to handle_ , both comments he made a week before The Silencing. 

With Bev’s words echoing in his head, and his gaze fixed on Richie standing at the end of the corridor with the broken look on his face that he wears constantly nowadays, the one that still causes Eddie’s heart to spasm every time he sees it, Eddie begins to re-evaluate his ideas.

***

Richie finds a sort of perverse pleasure in the punishment of his isolation. This is the penance that he deserves after all, walking around the halls whipping himself. _The bad sort of whipping, not the fun kind_ , he thinks wryly. It’s hard to grin or wink or waggle your eyebrows when there’s no one around to appreciate your quips, and just using the mirror as a substitute seems like too much effort nowadays. Besides, he has to focus on avoiding Eddie at school. At least he has his schedule memorised, and it’s not too hard to resist following him anyway just for the chance to watch him from afar. He can totally resist doing that. Easily. No problemo.

Some problemo.

The rest of the Losers still try to talk to him, and after dancing the usual dance, he always wiggles his way out of those conversations sharpish enough. He doesn’t want to bring a demolition ball to their lives the way he did with Eddie’s.

Mike is different though, as he doesn’t even attempt to converse with Richie, he just gives Richie brief, wordless, albeit bone-crushing, hugs every time he sees Richie at school. This is probably just because Mike is the freak result of a niceness machine overloading when someone accidentally spills a bag of kindness into it. That’s Richie’s explanation of why Mike does this anyway. There won’t be another reason.

Richie also fails to escape Stan’s deadpan clutches. One day Stan corners him after school, and then apparently decide to break a record player and jam it straight into his own mouth. This record player then simply repeats “Why are you avoiding Eddie?” over and over again, the inflection unerringly the same each time; and none of Richie’s patented dodges, not his claims that actually Eddie is so small Richie actually has him right here in his shirt pocket, not even his querying if this is Stan’s way of asking Richie if he fancies a threeway with the pair of them, gets the record to stop looping. Eventually Richie can’t help but embarrassingly mutter under his breath that “Eddie doesn’t want me bothering him”, which, mortifying as it is to say out loud, does at least result in Stan lapsing into a merciful silence for a full minute.

Until Stan abruptly breaks it with “Richie, you’re are the most bothersome person I’ve ever met. That doesn’t mean I don’t want you around all, some – most - of the time.”

“Oh, Staniel I never knew you cared-“ Richie tries in some voice that is rusty beyond the point of recognition.

Stan does not let him finish. “And if you think that Eddie doesn’t want you around, then you’re a bigger idiot than I ever thought possible.”

“Stan the man, surely-”

“He misses you. You miss him. I don’t know why you’re doing what you’re doing, but whatever reasons you think you have, I assure you that they’re dumb. Just look at him. Look.”

And with that, Stan turns and walks away, leaving Richie with a desert of words in his mouth.

This does get Richie thinking. Because, apart from the fact that Stan presumably hates him just as much as Eddie and all the others either secretly already do, or will do soon enough, Stan has never been anything but refreshingly, and painfully, blunt. Stan is an honest fellow, so maybe, maybe Richie should just look at Eddie.

Obviously he has been looking at Eddie, all the damn time (because actually there was a big problemo), but never a real _look_ , never for more than two seconds at a time, and always for much less time if he spots Eddie’s head turning in his direction. Richie honestly doesn’t have the strength to bear Eddie’s eye contact and see what Eddie thinks of him reflected back in those big doeish peepers.

But the next day, Stan’s voice echoing in his head, he finds himself not looking away when Eddie’s eyes end up locking with his. What he sees in those brown orbs is simultaneously familiar and confusing.

He sees sadness, the same sadness Eddie’s eyes held the time Bowers broke the mix tape Richie had made for him. And longing, identical to whenever Richie pretended to eat all the red gummy worms from a new pack. But also…contentment. Like whenever it was just the two of them lying on their backs in the grass down at the Barrens, and Eddie would look relaxed and like he was letting both the sunlight and Richie’s non-stop chatter wash over his body while he gazed up at the clouds, while Richie would convincingly pretend to stare at the sky as well, and surreptitiously keep shooting quick looks at the bundle of beauty next to him. Richie only ever got to see them from a side-on perspective, but Eddie’s eyes looked content, as if at that very moment everything in the universe was just _right_. And now those eyes were sort of looking at him like that, as if just seeing Richie for more than a few seconds for the first time in a month was enough to make everything else tumble away and carry him straight back to that summer field.

Which sets Richie’s puzzler on puzzle mode for the rest of the week. Even when he spends the entire weekend cooped up in his house, receiving no more than fifteen words and half-a-dozen looks from his parents between them the entire time. Gradually, this puzzling begins to light a fire in his cold and empty belly. Sure he deserves this penance of isolation, but why, just fucking why, does that mean he has to like it? He doesn’t want to sit here and take it anymore. _Even though really, he’d love to take it_ he says with a wink directed at the imaginary Eddie sitting cross-legged at the foot of his bed.

He hates this, he loathes the silence and the loneliness and the dullness and the emptiness.

He wants.

He wants his Eds. Maybe he should say so.

***

_~~Eds~~ _

_~~Eddie~~ _

_Eds_

_I miss you. ~~I guess~~ I know that you don’t care about that, and that’s okay, because you really shouldn’t. I’m glad that you’ve been able to amputate my annoying ass, because your life should be free of irritating buttocks._

_But I do miss you. I miss your giggle. Your fire. The heart the size of Wyoming you keep inside of that tiny torso. Your smile obviously. Your ~~thi~~. Never mind. _

_No fuck it. I miss your thighs because they’re a goddamn sticky dream. I know you didn’t want to hear that, least of all from me, but dammit you deserve to know because they’re fucking beautiful and because and I wanted to tell you that._

_I even miss the damn fanny pack._

_Most of all I miss being around you. In like any context really, you made even the shittiest of them better, even the Bowers ones. Obviously there won’t be anymore of those times, shitty or no, because I couldn’t help but ruin them. Burnt the bridge and ground the bridge-bits into dust. Bridge-bits are what you make bridges out of right? Well, whatever they are I ruined them and I am sorry._

_Sorry._

_Like a lot of sorrys. Sorrys for the terrible jokes, for being so inappropriate all the time, and being needy and doing anything to get you to look at me. It was never a great sight, and I shouldn’t have kept dragging your eyes over to me. And I’m sorry for being so blatant with all those ~~gay~~ dirty thoughts I had. But can you blame me? Actually yes you can and you should. And on the offchance that you’re telepathic, major apologies for all those ~~fantasies~~ thoughts, but frankly that’s kinda your fault for having such kissable lips. Well, kissable-looking. They might taste like wet dog for all I know, but I’d still think about kissing them anyway. Sorry for that. I know you don’t like that sort of thing. My fault._

_But, could you do me a favour here Eds? Could you try and remember the good times, because I’m sure there must have been some. Right? Before I Richied them all. ~~Like the time with the~~ . ~~Or the~~. There must have been some. If there were, could you just think of them sometimes? You don’t need to obviously, but please? If that’s alright._

_You obviously won’t see me around much anymore, so at least that’s a gangly weight off your mind. Especially because soon enough I’ll be quarantined in LA, and you’ll be doing so fucking good at NYU (so proud of you for that by the way). But if you do happen to spot me try and remember something nice rather than all the other annoying shit I did. It would mean the world, a few other planets and several large asteroids if you did._

_If you want to. ~~Please~~. _

_I hope that’s what you do when you see me now anyway. Sometimes I think that’s what you were thinking when you looked at me on Friday. Maybe._

_~~There was probably someone standing behind me~~._

_Good luck with everything. I’ll know you’ll do great, deadweight-free._

_I ~~lo~~ root for you always._

_Bye._

_~~Chee~~ ~~Your Richie~~ Richard Tozier_

***

Bev’s words and Richie’s face weigh heavily on Eddie’s mind that weekend. Obviously Richie’s face is always hovering somewhere around the outskirts of his mind, and Bev’s words are remarkably effective at elbowing their way to the forefront of his thoughts. Bev is like that, even in imaginary utterance form.

But by Sunday night, they have together helped Eddie in his reassessment project. Maybe this isn’t entirely his fault. Richie’s heartbroken face could be due to something other than Eddie driving him away. Or not _just_ because of that at any rate. After all, he’s clearly trying to avoid the other Losers if their intelligence reports are to be believed, and they haven’t done anything to drive him away the way Eddie so cruelly has. And, he chides himself, it’s not as if Eddie is or should be the centre of Richie’s world. Richie has many orbits, and if Bev is right, and it’s something in Richie’s inner sanctum that is causing him all this pain, then maybe maybe maybe Eddie can help. Help in a way that, well, _helps_ , unlike the last disaster. Limited contact, maximum results.

He grabs a pen and paper, and is finished in a remarkably short amount of time. Eddie the coward never knew moving from the safety of mind-words to the danger of paper-words would be easy, but it turns out it is. Talking about Richie is always easy he supposes.

It’s odd that he’s doing this without Richie for the first time, but apparently the thought of Richie is enough for him to screw his mother’s rules into the dirt. Checking quickly that she’s already asleep, hardly a surprise, Eddie strides, determinedly, madly over to his window. Breathing deeply and regularly he is surprised at the small amount of panic that is coursing through his veins. It’s probably because, finally, he is doing something for Richie and not for his own foolish self. It feels good to be doing this. It’s the first time anything has felt good since that night.

Eddie pulls open his curtain, hoists up the window, places one hand on the window ledge and – _what_.

What. The. Fuck.

***

At five minutes to midnight, Richie was lying on his bed, his heart penduluming wildly from a sort of furious pride to abject terror. Terror of course that Eddie would be horrified by the letter and all it revealed in stark purple-and-white (Richie owned only purple pens as a point of principle). While it had been a month since Richie had driven the final enormous nail into the coffin of the friendship, there was still the gut-wrenching fear that the stupid, impulsive, stupid letter represented nothing more than Richie the Ruiner’s last kamikaze run, the culmination of his manic need to leave nothing but a wasteland behind him.

On a dime though, he would switch to fierce indignancy, a blazing fuck-you. He hadn’t said a word to Eddie in so fucking long, and barely a smattering before then, so dammit wasn’t he entitled to say something now? He deserved something right, even if it was just one last chance to tell Eddie was a goddamn gem he really was. Then _‘Annoying little boys don’t deserve anything’_ , Went’s Words of Wisdom Vol. 23 would appear before his watery eyes, and the pendulum would swing straight back.

At midnight, and during the seventeenth swing of the pendulum however, his window screeched open, and a tiny ball of fury came tumbling through.

“How the fuck do you manage to make that look so goddamn easy?!? It took me ten fucking minutes to scramble up that tree, and another five to reach the freaking window! My arms are scratched to shit, I have fucking sap in my hair, it had better be sap, because if it is bird shit, I’m going to kill you I swear to god!”

“E-Eds?” Richie chokes out. Which is a pretty pointless question, because yes Eddie is indeed here, in all his Eddie-glory. Richie’s brain is still processing this remarkable fact, while the glory rages on, quite unabated.

“Why the fuck would you make me do this? Don’t answer that!” Richie couldn’t answer if he tried. 

“I’ll you why! Because I went to sneak out to give you this –“ Eddie throws a bit of paper vaguely in Richie’s direction, and it floats down to land on his chest. He does not dare to look at it, partially because he’s not sure if he’s allowed, and partially because he can’t tear his gaze away from Eddie’s face. Even with such anger in his eyes, he is still looking _right at him_ , and that isn’t something that Richie feels he can just abandon.

“And on my windowsill I find this!” Eddie holds up the letter that Richie recognises as his own. “I pour my heart into that fucking note, only to find that you have, somehow, turned it into a joke! Made your own little, pre-fucking-cognitive version, to what - make fun of me? Because that’s what it is right? Another, chuck, or something. A joke…. right?” he finishes almost softly, his fingers twitching and his lips quivering.

This is not what Richie expected at all. Fire and ice-water courses through his veins. “It wasn’t a joke Eds,” he finds himself saying.

“Then what was it?”

“The…well…I know you don’t want to hear this, but, um…it’s kinda the truth. Kinda. Totally” Richie stammers out, quailing under Eddie’s wide-eyed glare. 

“Well, maybe that’s the truth as well!” Eddie indignantly chokes out, hand flapping towards the note he had thrown at Richie.

Cautiously, lest it leap up from his chest and bite his face off, Richie reaches for the piece of paper and turns it over. He only manages to read the first few lines before his brain collapses in on itself.

_Chee_

_I know your jokes are ridiculous, but you are still the funniest person I have ever met. I know you dress like a paint factory in Honolulu exploded, but you are still the most beautiful man I have ever seen. I know that your arms are made of ramen, but they still give the best hugs I’ve ever felt._

_I know the Losers care so much for you. I know I do. I know everyone should care about you because you -_

Richie tears his eyes up to stare at the boy before him. More energy burns through his body than he has ever felt before, so much blazing, conflicting energy that he doesn’t know what to even name it, let alone what to do with it.

“You meant all of this?” he asks.

Eddie nods briefly, a blush imprinting on his face. He drops his gaze down to Richie’s letter, unable to meet the look, whatever that look is, that the taller boy is giving him. He scans the words before him, the same words that he has already read half-a-dozen times, the ones that set his innards aflame and sent him careening right to Richie’s house in a desperate sprint of confusion, fury and a hastily-repressed bubble of elation.

“This is actually…true?” he asks the Trashmouth, from whom a vague sound of assent whistles from his glowing face.

Eddie’s eyes fix back on the letter. The confusion, waning fury and growing bubble of elation push more words out of his mouth. “You want to kiss me? Why would you want to kiss me? We’re boys, that’s gross…right?” 

The unidentified energy that has occupied Richie’s body and mind now seizes his lips and forces them to say “I don’t think it’s gross.”

“Please, you don’t think ANYTHING is gross,” Eddie responds. “You didn’t think that time Bill face-planted into a cowpat was gross”

“No, that was totally gross, but that meant it was funny. Gross equals funny. That’s just science right?” Richie’s mouth continues to emit sounds, quite out of his control. “I don’t think kissing you would be gross though.” The flush that appears on Eddie is different to the ones he has seen before, and Richie isn’t sure that he entirely minds the loss of control that the energy has taken away from him after all.

Eddie’s mind is whirring frantically. “But…you like girls. I see you staring at Sally’s butt all the damn time!”

“Sally has a nice butt. But yours is nicer.”

The jolting thrill that is normally restricted only to Eddie’s alone time, throbs through him right now. “So what you like…both or something?” The small laugh that he adds at the end is supposed to make it sound funny. Not plaintive. 

Richie shrugs. “Yeah, butts are butts. Boys’ butts, girls’ butts, Spaghetti’s butt. They’re all awesome. Isn’t that obvious?”

The bubble is ballooning in Eddie’s chest, but with it grows his manic incredulity. The anger begins to wax again. “So what, you’re actually saying that you, like…like me?”

Richie thought facing down the firing squad of that question would be terrifying, but the coursing energy blocks the fear, shielding it with a furious ire. “Yes,” he admits. “Obviously.” 

Anger and desperation and panic and giddiness and sheer fucking energy fills Eddie’s and Richie’s chests in equal measure.

“Well, maybe I love you more!” Eddie retorts.

Richie growls in frustration. Eddie clearly isn’t getting it. “Well, maybe I want to kiss you right now!”

Eddie squeaks indignantly. “Well, maybe you should!”

The energy propels Richie forwards. He strides across the room, places both hands on Eddie’s cheeks, leans down, closes his eyes….and freezes. 

He has no energy whatsoever. His body and mind are devoid of anything but horror at his actions. At how in-a-propriate they are. At how they are being foisted on someone who does not deserve them. At the repellence of his urges and at the hurt that they shall bring.

Then Eddie’s lips crash into his own.

And everything other than those lips burns away.

_Nothing about this is gross_ Eddie thinks. This is a kiss, a kiss with a boy, with Trashmouth, with Richie FUCKING Tozier, and it is soft, and wet, and firm, and desperate and so so fucking good. He deepens the kiss, before pulling back and plunging in again. Their mouths move against one another, and when Eddie’s tongue caresses Richie’s lower lip he whimpers. This could never have been wrong and disgusting. Not when Richie’s own tongue pushes insistently into his mouth like that. Not when Richie’s hair feels so perfect between his fingers. 

The kiss breaks down into several smaller ones, light pecks and the feel of one another’s breath.

“Do you get it now?” Eddie whispers. Richie giggles and buries his face in Eddie’s neck. He can feel Eddie’s arms around him, his fingers carding softly through his hair, his chest heaving against his own and his nose nuzzling against his cheek.

He melts. 

Eddie is all around him. 

It takes several minutes of soft breathing and gentle, inarticulate murmurs before they can leave the cocoon and look into one another’s eyes.

“Sorry” they both utter at the same time.

“What are you sorry for? Everything’s been my fault!” Eddie exclaims.

“Hey, that’s my line!” Richie squawks.

“Well, maybe I’m sorrier!” Eddie ripostes, the grin quite unhidden on his face.

“Doing this again are we?” Richie hesitantly leans in for another kiss. It doesn’t take long for the hesitation to vanish into Eddie’s mouth. Then again, neither is it long before it returns.

“Eds,” Richie breathes out, his eyes still shut tight. “I really am sorry. I know just how annoying I’ve been, and how I never shut up, and all that staring and touching and everything I say, how much you hate all that, I never wanted you to of course, it’s just that…fuck…I’m sorry.” His gabbles fade into nothing. Silence reigns for several seconds before Richie can open his eyes a crack.

Eddie is staring back at him, looking quite intimidating. “Did you not notice my tongue was literally in your mouth a minute ago? Do you really think it would have been there if I’d hated you?”

Richie considers this. The presence of the tongue was admittedly undeniable, but that didn’t mean…Obviously this couldn’t actually be a case where…

Right?

“I wish you’d never run away,” Eddie continues. “I’m sorry. I know I made that happen.”

Richie’s brain cannot accept what this might mean. Granted however, the thumb rubbing soft circles into his cheek makes a strong case.

“It was never you,” Richie gasps out, looking down at the Eds before him through a decidedly watery haze. “It was, just…um…you know…” It seems Eddie’s lips have snatched all traces of articulation from his mouth. Or maybe his mind simply cannot wrap itself around the look that Eddie is giving him. “I know you were busy, so I didn’t want to…” he finishes lamely, with only the faintest clue as to what he is saying.

“Oh, well that was because…” Eddie flushes once more, his gaze bouncing swiftly from Richie’s eyes, to the floor and back again (maybe stopping to hover on his lips a few times. Maybe). 

After a short while of Richie not miraculously reading his mind, Eddie realises he should continue. “Because I had a lot of extra-credit work to do. To get into…um, college.”

“But you got into NYU months ago”

“Yeah, but not UCLA…”

Richie’s knows Eddie doesn’t mean what Richie wants Eddie to mean. “UCLA?”

“Yeah. With, um,” Eddie swallows heavily. “You.”

Richie now knows Eddie does mean what Richie wanted Eddie to mean. This knowing may be more than his heart, which has already had quite the heavy evening, can actually take. 

Eddie attaches his eyes permanently to the floorboards. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, but I didn’t want you to think that we – you – had to…” He shrugs, pupils fixed on a speck of dust. “You know. Being a coward and everything”

Eddie knows it shouldn’t be so mortifying to admit something that everyone already knows. It shouldn’t make tears prick his eyes and shame drench his body. It does anyway.

Richie finds that the absurdity of what Eddie just said brings his articulate trashmouth sprinting back. “That’s fucking stupid. You’re the least cowardly person I’ve ever met.”

Eddie’s ears can’t process this, but apparently his mouth can. “Richie, I just told you I was scared of telling you which fucking college I was applying to.”

“Yeah, but you did it anyway”

“I’ve been terrified of kissing a boy my entire fucking life”

“Yeah, but you did it anyway.” Richie’s fingers reach out, hook under Eddie’s chin and gently push it upwards until their eyes meet. “You were terrified and did it anyway. That makes you the bravest little Spaghetti that ever lived.”

Eddie’s not sure he believes that. But the heat of Richie’s forehead against his own, and the feel of his thumb on his lower lip and _that_ fucking look in his eyes? That Eddie does believe. Maybe that will be enough.

Eddie pulls Richie back down. Their eyes close and their mouths join together once more.

There isn’t a ruin to be seen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's done! Than you so much for everyone who read, kudos and commented. It means the damn solar system to me.
> 
> Writing again has been awesome fun and fucking exhausted (how do so many people in this fandom just produce these epic fics so quickly? I have no idea, but worship them all).
> 
> I do have a few ideas for other fics though, so hopefully enough I'll have something out soon. Soonish.   
> This year.   
> Decade.

**Author's Note:**

> So having spent a long time in utter aware of the authors in this fandom, and desperately trying to convey that awe by mashing the kudos button, I thought I might try actually contributing something.
> 
> I never written fanfiction before, and haven't written anything creative in a long time.  
> Actually I have no idea what I'm doing. So any comments, criticism or kudos is utterly welcome.
> 
> And apologies for the angst (that's a lie, I want you all to suffer).


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